


Bury Anchors In Our Ghosts

by deathwailart



Series: Dutchman AU [1]
Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, F/F, Flying Dutchman, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-26
Updated: 2014-07-26
Packaged: 2018-02-10 12:39:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2025408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deathwailart/pseuds/deathwailart
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wherein death is not quite so final and Anne is kept waiting sixty years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bury Anchors In Our Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Repost from [tumblr](http://bansheesquad.tumblr.com/post/85454670964/bury-anchors-in-our-ghosts) (you can read it there with the graphic to go with.)

Her last thoughts are _Annie, sweet Annie_ and the daughter they plucked from her arms as she lay in a filthy bed, bloodied and sweating, a wretched pain that should have eased but never did, a fever that sapped the strength from her limbs before leaving her in her stinking cell.  Anne being taken to safety, thank God and the agony in Edward’s voice.  Her last words are _I’ll be with you, Kenway.  I will_.  Then it’s cold but she doesn’t mind, it’s too bloody hot here anyway half the time and she’s been burning since before her baby came screaming out of her.  It’s like diving into the sea, sound muffled but she’s got her eyes closed, it’s too hard to open them and a little part of her mind knows that she should breathe but she lets herself sink.

When she wakes - she shouldn’t wake, God she knows death well enough at her own hand and from absent friends and crew, she could smell it enough to make bile rise, taste it on the back of her tongue and she couldn’t even hold Anne’s bloody hand (Annie, sweet Annie, let her have that child in her belly to hold in her arms) for some comfort - she’s on a ship that looks like it’s been at the bottom of the sea for longer than she’s been alive.  The paint’s gone and the deck is mostly green and there are barnacles encrusted here and there and a whole crew looking down at her with tentative smiles.

"Captain," one of them says with the hangman’s bruises round his throat, "we’ve been waiting for you."

Up she gets and she’s James again, same clothes when she looks down, same hair.  The pain is gone, her mind no longer a fever addled mess and the smile feels right as she strolls - always more at ease on the rolling deck of a ship than land - up the stairs, wraps her hands around the handles of the wheel and looks out at the open ocean.  It’s night, dark enough that she can’t tell where the sea ends and the sky begins and something settles because she’s barking orders like this is just another day, like she’s not a woman who pleaded her belly only to end up dying anyway. 

She knows what she’s to do.  Doesn’t know how but she remembers her mam’s voice (or maybe she thinks she does, she doesn’t care, she’s got a ship and a crew and the wind in her sails) about ferrying the dead; some stay with her and some she helps to move on.  She helps to take down ships (navy and Templars, she doesn’t know how she knows, she just does) and she sends her crew with rowing boats to help those who still have life, especially young lasses, making sure they’re safely to shore and shelter before they depart. 

Never steps off the ship herself.  Oh they told her she gets one day every ten years but there’s only one she wants to see and this isn’t how she’ll do it.  (She takes it as a sign she’s not seen Edward, he better’ve outlasted somewhere but she hasn’t found his soul among all those she meets so she hopes he’s off somewhere growing old and complaining about his aching knees or whatever it is old blokes bleat on about.)

But then she’s urging the ship through every storm - can’t sink this beauty, she’s already gone through the same as the rest of them - and has them weigh anchor.  It’s the first time she’s set foot on shore in over sixty years, moving through a quiet town like a wraith, clambering up the side of one house in particular and in through the window and oh she’s old with wrinkles creasing her face, that red red hair gone grey but she’d know her Annie anywhere.  There’s a seat by the bed but she forgoes it, hops right up and takes a hand with skin that feels thin as paper.

"Mary?"  Anne’s accent thick as ever but roughened by age and there are tears.  "God, Mary?  Is that you?"  
  
"Aye," Mary’s throat is tight but she forces the word out, squeezing Anne’s hand and leaning forward to kiss her forehead, brushing her hair from her face.  "Look at you-"  
  
” _Mary_ ,” Anne sobs, struggling to sit up and then she’s coughing, the death rattle already there in her throat.  “You were— Edward had you in his arms—”  
  
"You’re coming with me," she vows and shushes the protests, "you’re coming with me Annie, won’t be long."

She spins Anne tales as they wait of the ghost ship, Anne smiling and patting Mary’s hand and Anne whispers of all the children she had - Anne, a mother, a grandmother, her voice catching in her throat as she talks.

"I lost mine, that night…the prison," she sounds young somewhere, small and pained and frightened, "but your girl!  Oh we found her!  Named her Lizzie, you’d be proud Mary, you’d—"

And that’s that, the last words as Mary wipes away her tears (something salvaged from that mess, _Lizzie_ , she thinks, _Lizzie my girl_ ) before someone clears their throat.

"Sixty years you kept me waiting."

It’s Anne, Anne with her fiery hair and the flowers weaved around her head, Anne with her hands on her hips, expectant firebrand Mary lost her mind over.

"You comin’ with me then?"  
  
"Reckon you’ll need a quartermaster after all, kept Edward in line well enough," Anne replies with a shrug, trying to keep the smirk out of her voice.   
  
"Don’t think I’ve got a cabin for you."  
  
"Well you’d best share your bed then, hadn’t you captain?"  
  
"Oh aye, anything for my crew."

They leave unseen, laughing as they race through the streets and to the shore - Anne threatens to throw Mary off the boat if she tries to serenade her - where the crew are waiting, laughing and cheering, all of them rushing to introduce themselves and Anne raises an eyebrow once they’ve settled and they’re shoving off again.

"Might’ve mentioned a few things about you," Mary mutters but she’s reaching out to tug Anne close to her, head on her shoulder.  
  
"There’s still a lot of catching up to do."  
  
"Well we’ve got time and all the ocean waiting for us."  
  
"Best make a start then."


End file.
